Explore 360! Explorations of the World and Mind

Feb 10th A new blog, kind of…

Hey all,

My new blog will look very much the same as my old one. Instead of being a “year long” project it is now an indefinite project. I changed the title from “Venture 365!”, which indicated a year long project (365 days) to “Venture 360!”, which implies looking all directions (360 degrees around). Easy change, only one number…

Anyway, off to the races!

Dec 31st New Year’s Eve

Avalanche Ranch Hot Springs

Today we soaked in the new hot spring pools at Avalanche Ranch near Redstone. This is a natural hot spring in the sense that they don’t heat or treat the water in any way. They did however dig a well at a geological hot seam (Penny hot spring is a mile upstream and there are others nearby including Glenwood Springs hot spring). Apparently they got lucky and tapped a hot spring on their first try. They pipe the water to the pools and then circulate it back underground so there is no net water table loss. Interesting idea.

Later this afternoon we took a long walk up the valley. No skiing today. Tonight is the NYE party here at the Inn. I’ll be surprised if we can stay awake until midnight, we almost never do.

So this posting concludes my year long project. I ended up with 68 posts, averaging a little over one per week. This is the point where you might expect a recap of the year. Lucky for you, I hate that kind of thing, mainly because if you were actually interested in knowing what went on with me this year, you can go back and read it online as it happened! My blogging won’t end though, stay tuned for the next phase…

The one recap I do have is that this was not the year of the comet as I speculated in my first post of the year.

Last pic of 2013 is Chair Mountain from Redstone.

Happy 2014!

Dec 30th Travel Day

The Redstone Inn

Today was a travel day. We departed the paradise of Steamboat to arrive in the winter wonderland of Redstone. Unfortunately, despite the beautiful facade pictured above, the hot tub was broken, something they failed to inform us about even as we asked the front desk how to get out to it. We pulled back the covers and it was filled with cold water, an unpleasant surprise when you are out in a 12 degree evening clad only in your bathing suit. One wonders why they failed to inform us of the hot tub status while we were inside. Ouch!

This “incident” makes us appreciate the excellent job the are doing at the Inn at Steamboat, where our place is.

No problem, we have a hot spring plan for tomorrow. Below is downtown Redstone:

Dec 29th Rabbit Ears Mania!

Shelly Preparing For Rabbit Ears Mania!

Today we returned to backcountry skiing, this time on Rabbit Ears Pass. Our goal was to complete what is called the South Summit Loop, a moderately difficult route just over three miles. We hadn’t done this particular loop on the pass, the last new one to us. About a quarter mile in Shelly suggested we do some yo-yoing on one of the steep slopes just to the west of the loop. Our GPS track below shows the loop and where we did two runs down the slope:

The snow was “the best evah!” Perfect crystalline powder. Below is Shelly tele skiing down the open slope:

The day started out foggy and about 14 degrees F. There was a slight cold breeze. But after about 30 minutes the fog burned off and it wa blue skies. It actually got quite warm. We made two runs down and skinned back up. Here is Shelly arriving at the aspen grove near the bottom:

We continued around the loop after these runs, not as exhilarating but it gave us a great workout. And it’s always fun to glide through these pine forests and meadows:

This was our last full day at our place in Steamboat, it was great to finally get out here, we’ve been tied up with work and travel and unable to visit since last summer.

So of course it was good to end up at the Sweetwater Grill for dinner and a drink. But this is not yet the end of the year, more to come!

Dec 28th Another Steamboat Day

Skate Skiing Through Multi-million Dollar Mansions

Today we did a bit of skate skiing, this time around the Steamboat Nordic Center, which doubles as a golf course in the summer. It is surrounded by huge luxury mansions, almost all of which appear unoccupied. They are fifth homes for the uber rich, there is a lot of money around here, far beyond the imagination of the average person. Note the pit dug into the snow in the foreground. This was done by elk wandering through the course.

Anyway, we skied about an hour on this course which is a bit more difficult due to the ups and downs. GPS track shows our route around the course:

There is a gap in the track where I turned off the recording while we took a break and forgot to turn it back on for about 5 minutes.

After our ski we rambled up to Strawberry Hot Springs, which I wrote about last January, we visit Strawberry most trips up here. It was a relaxing soak in the winter air.

We then went to Mambos, our favorite Steamboat Italian restaurant for pizza and a beer:

Afterward we retired to the fireplace at our condo to relax with some wine. More fun awaiting tomorrow!

Dec 27th Near the Wyoming Border

Shelly Ready For First Backcountry Ski of the Season

Today we drove up to just north of Columbine, Colorado, to get some backcountry skiing. The snow was fantastic and it was 25 degrees warmer than yesterday, though still below freezing.

As you can see there is about 3 feet of snow on the ground. Columbine is about 30 miles north of Steamboat and is really just a collection of old miners cabins. We used to gather our gang and rent out the place over Thanksgiving weekend hoping for enough snow for early season skiing. Great times were had by all.

One tradition we had was to ski up and down Hahn’s Peak, pictured below:

It looks pretty high but is a minor peak for Colorado and there is an old mining road that winds to the summit.

Hahn’s was our original plan but we got a late start and so opted for the tour just north. The sun sets early though so our entire trip lasted only two hours. It was getting cold and we had the hot tub waiting:

And so I conclude this entry with an appropriately mangled poem:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But my ass is frozen and of beer I think,
And miles to go before I drink,
Miles to go before I drink…

Dec 26th Boxing Day Activities

Shelly Under The  5 Degree Sun

2014 is rapidly drawing to a close and so is my year long blog project. For the last few days I will post post photos of our  year end vacation in the beautiful, snowy and cold Colorado mountains.

We’re in Steamboat for a few days. Today it was about 5 F degrees And so we went out to Catamount to do some skate skiing. We did two loops totaling about 7.5 miles. GPS track below:

We kept warm by moving fast. Here I am catching my breath:

This ski area is on country club property but open to the public. They have about 30 kilometers of excellent groomed trails that run over wide open snow covered ranch fields. The photo below shows a bit of the area. Those paths are not roads, they are the groomed trails:

We stopped for a snack and to warm up at the Nordic center after the first loop. After the second loop we were mucho tired and cold, this was our first skate ski of the season.
Back to our condo for a hot tub soak with a sunset view!

Dec 23rd Rambling: Christmas and the Winter Solstice

This Morning’s Commute Scenery

Well we just passed the winter solstice a couple days ago. This is when we experience the longest night/shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. The daylight hours grow longer and the sun climbs higher in the ski for the next six months until the summer solstice. Since the hours of daylight and angle of the sun’s rays determine the average temperature, you might expect that the solstice would be the coldest day of the year, on average anyway.

Actually the coldest average temperature happens about a week after the solstice. The reason is because the earth and atmosphere act as a heat reservoir. This reservoir leaks heat continuously and is replenished by the sun. During the winter, the sun decreases its fill rate and eventually the heat leaking into space is greater than the replenish rate and the earth cools. So even though the sun is turning up its heating spigot after the solstice, it takes a few days before the replenish rate matches the heat loss rate. The same thing happens on a shorter time scale during the day. The hottest part of the day is not at noon but an hour or so later.

Ok, science lesson over.

Next: In two days it will be Christmas. This may or may not be the date Christ was born, but I find it very surprising that it happens only three or four days on the bright side of the solstice. Given that solstice celebrations are far more ancient and were widely practiced all over the northern hemisphere, it seems highly likely that Christmas day was set to coincide with these celebrations. There are of course arguments on both sides of this issue, but it remains that Christmas is now a de facto solstice celebration.

And now my conclusion: The reason we experience varying daylight hours, longer in the summer and shorter in the winter, is because the rotation axis of the earth is tilted 23 degrees from the plane that defines the earth’s orbit around the sun. If the axis were zero, day and night would be exactly the same length for the entire year. If the tilt were greater than 23 degrees, all kinds of freaky things would be different. Think about it for a few minutes.

That 23 degree axial tilt is the main driver of the seasons, and the Winter solstice is the inflection point of daylight hours and warming temperatures. It is something to celebrate.

SO… What is the true meaning of Christmas? 23 degrees.

Dec 11th Moab

Rock Formation in Canyonlands National Park

Over the Thanksgiving holidays we headed out to Moab, Utah, with the intent of mountain biking for a couple of days with a group of holiday “orphan” friends. The weather didn’t cooperate, it was overcast with snow and rain, and never got much above 35 degrees. And because the trails were a muddy mess, we ended up doing a couple of hikes instead.

The first was a 10 mile hike to the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers in Canyonlands National Park. There was a tiny bit of snow on the trail and we noted that it would be super easy to get off track if the trail got completely covered and you weren’t paying attention to where you were going. Below are Ken and Shelly at the beginning of our trip.

After a bit of up and down hiking, including a ladder that climbs 20 feet up a slickrock cliff, some easy rock scrambling and a bunch of desert sand, you arrive at a spectacular overlook above the confluence, shown below. Green River is on the left, the Colorado River on the right:

They don’t call it Canyonlands for nothin’!

A few of us also did another hike in Arches National Park. Got stuck a couple of times on mud covered slickrock and had to downclimb some steep cliffs. Unfortunately I do not have photos of those “kodak moments,” all my mental effort went into getting down those cliffs. All in all a fun trip!